If By Chance
by Imladiel.SmartsyWafflez
Summary: Chance seems to be all I can be certain of these days. I no longer believe in odds. What were the odds that I would be tossed into a portal, a portal that I never knew existed? A portal that taught me things, and took away my home for the price. A white room of nothing. I'm Clarissa Meritt, learning to live by chance. It's getting easier with my friends by my side. FMAB/Manga fic.


_This is a story all about how Claire's life gets flipped, turned upside down._

Okay, that was cheesy I know. Hey, my name is Clarissa Meritt, but my good friends- they call me Claire. I'm actually a bit scared of this place, but that's okay. I will learn to live and deal. Live and deal is a recurring theme in my life, though, so it shouldn't be that difficult. I mean, I adapt so easy, it takes a lot to throw me off the tracks of my train-of-thought.

This is Adri. Adri doesn't get to speak because she doesn't have the stick. So, I will tell you exactly what she wants me to tell you.

Hold on, let me clear my throat. "Ahem." Okay. "I do not own this wonderful piece of work called Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I only own my dear character, Clarissa Meritt, who can do the best impersonation of me."

Enjoy the story.

* * *

If By Chance

Chapter 1

What is this? White- pure and blinding, pearly and deadly, and there are doors. Doors with the strangest markings which, by far, do not indicate the doors to the home. I'm still carrying the cardboard boxes. They are full of photographs, photo albums, old letters from my friends and family. I was in the process of moving them from the car to the nursing home where my mom is staying. She was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's disease a while back. They say it is progressing rapidly. My dad is out of town on business, leaving me in charge of my mom. I go often, yes; however, I was still nervous about this particular visit. Perhaps it was just premonition, a unconscious guess of this strange, white place around me. "Is this what they mean by going into the light? Am I a victim of SADS, or something?"

"What is SADS?" I hear a calm voice from behind me. I practically jump out of my skin. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. This is the first time I have spoken to anyone in a very long time." Am I in an asylum? I turn around to find a boy, a few years younger than I. His blonde hair is long and unkempt. His face is thin. He looks dehydrated and malnourished, and he is- naked.

I turn my head back around quickly, looking at the emptiness ahead as I set the box down. I remove my jacket. I toss it backwards like a bouquet toss. "SADS. It is basically what they call an unexplained death in an adult, though I am not an adult yet," I respond. "Now answer my question, please. Where even are we?"

I hear him pick up the jacket slowly, weakly. I think he realized what was wrong and took my unspoken advice. I feel bad for the guy, and I search through my KAVU bag for a granola bar or ten and water. "Are you covered? Can you eat?" I ask.

He chuckles. I'm covered." He looks at me as I turn around, and his face goes from a smile to a serious look of concern. "I do not know if I can eat. I'm not really hungry..." How could this poor boy not be hungry?

"Are you allergic to anything?" I ask him. He shakes his head 'no', and I open the granola bar for him. "Eat, but not too much. If you feel like you are going to get sick, stop eating, but save it for later." I open the water and set it next to him. "This water here is to wash it down and hydrate you. Again, don't make yourself sick."

"This is really unnecessary, miss," he says.

"Clarissa, but my friends call me Claire."

"Alphonse, but everyone calls me Al." He laughs, "Well, then Claire. You are in the portal. These doors hold all of the truth you can imagine, all of the information you could ever hope for. I went through it, and in turn lost my soul. It is attached to a suit of armour in the waking world. I just can't leave here without it. You, however, have everything. So how did you get here? Who, if I may ask, did you try to bring back to life?"

Bring back from the dead? I cannot stand zombies; they scare me so much. Unless he is talking about CPR? "Although I'm certified in CPR, I've brought no one back from the dead," I say. He gives a puzzled expression, but he let's his curiosity slip from him. "I was bringing these photographs to show to my mother. She is ill and wanted to see them. I honestly don't know how I got here."

His eyes grew saddened. "I'm sorry to hear about your mother. I hope she gets well again soon." I'm not going to correct him. "Our mother passed away a few years ago, when I was little. I'm here because my brother and I tried human transmutation to bring her back." What's that? I open my mouth to ask, but another character joins the party. It has no expressions or physical characteristics. It's a silhouette of a man. "Scaramouch. Scaramouch. Will you do the fandango? Thunder bolts of lightning, very, very frightening me!" I laugh to myself. Nobody else gets it. Tough crowd. "What? Neither of you have heard _Bohemian Rhapsody_? Come on! It's a classic!"

"Who are you?" I've always dreamt of being Alice from Lewis Carroll's _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ , but it seems that the caterpillar is quite deformed. "And why are you here? You are foreign to me."

"Well, that makes two of us. I don't know why I'm here. I was hoping you could tell me." The ghoulish creature just circles me, looking at me with it's empty face. "Perhaps I have the right to ask who you are?"

"Truth."

Truth? Whatever. I'm done with this nonsense. "Well, Truth, can you set us free or not?"

"Us?"

"Yeah, my buddy, Al, over here and myself. We would like to go to our respective homes, you know."

"I can let you go, just not him. He has to stay here. It is his payment." It looks at me once more. "Your name?"

"Clarissa."

"Clarissa," it sounds out my name in its eerie voice, and I shudder, "I am also afraid that I cannot send you back from whence you came. I do not even know where that is. So I am sending you to Amestris, where you can start a new life over."

"Hold on. If I got here, there must be a way back. I have obligations and responsibilities back home. This isn't the riddle where I'm locked in a room with no doors, no windows. A room where there is only a mirror and a table. A room where I have to figure out how to get out of it." I glare. "This is a room with two doors, two _huge_ doors. Now how did I get here, which door did I go through, and how do I know you are not lying to me?"

"My name is Truth. Why would I lie? The truth is more fun, anyway."

"Reverse Psychology." It laughs outright to my response, and it continues to laugh. It makes me uneasy. This being is so creepy, something that would be in a horror movie or a nightmare of mine.

"I am afraid that I cannot send you back," he says. "But since you lost your home, consider that your price."

My price? That is what Al was talking about, wasn't it? "Wait- I don't-"

And my world goes black. Huge film reels traveling beside me. I am receiving all of the information about, what is it saying, Alchemy? I think that's what this is about. Which, this is absolutely nonsense. Alchemy was more of a pre-chemistry deal in Egypt, I think. It wasn't proven to work, not that I believe. I mean, why wouldn't we be studying it in school if it did? If we have to learn the quadratic formula (the opposite of b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4 times a times c, over two times a.) Yes, I remember that from Freshman year.

Point is, I shouldn't have given up my home for this. I'm not impressed.

I suppose I should be thankful that he didn't take my soul or something like that, but at the same time, he took a lot from me. If alchemy is a thing, I better be _a legend_ when I get out of this nauseating place.

* * *

"Miss... Miss, wake up," I hear a man's voice say. I refuse to open my eyes. My headache is awful. This shaking, isn't helping at all."

"P-please just stop. I'm awake, but my head hurts terribly. I promise I'm awake, alive, or whatever you were wondering."

I hear laughing. "Well, I am pleased to hear you are alive, miss, but we have a problem." A problem? I don't even know you, and we have a problem. My eyes snap open, and I crawl backwards away from the man. The- men. They are both in blue. We are inside a building with white walls and wooden floors. There is a map, and a green flag hanging from the wall. The map is nothing that I have ever seen before. I look to my left, and I see my box. The pictures are strewn about. I look back at the two men in their uniforms.

"Oh yes, we have quite a problem! I have five very important questions: One. Who are you? Tweedledee and Tweedledum?" They give each other a look. "Two. Where am I? Because this doesn't look like any wonderland I've read about. Three. What is the date? Four. What in the WORLD happened to my photographs? And, five. Well, I will ask five after you answer the other four."

"You are in Central City, and not only are you in Central City, you are in the Headquarters of the military. This is Fuhrer King Bradley, the leader of this country." I am going to puke on everything and everyone. "I am Colonel Roy Mustang."

"Today is March 14th, 1914," the leader says. "You took quite the tumble, and your pictures fell out of the box."

"And, question five," I say, too weak for my liking. "I know this sounds insane, but I've never been to wherever this is, ever before. So does that mean I'm prone to illnesses that most people here are immune to?"

"I do not know," they both respond honestly. I don't make a movement. I don't acknowledge their sincerity. "Miss, might I ask your name." Mr. Bradley inquiries.

"I have a long name. Is that what you need, or just what I go by. I am willing to answer your questions. You've answered my simple ones."

He helps me up, and I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Your full name would be appreciated, miss."

I sigh, "Clarissa Evelynne Brielle Meritt." I notice that he is writing, and so I spell my name out for him. This way, he doesn't have to guess.

"You are dismissed, Colonel," Bradley says. "Miss Meritt, will you come and tell me how you managed to get here without my guards knowing?" He motions for me to sit, and he moves to his desk to grab a pen and paper.

I look at the photographs on the floor. The one that is the most clear from my seat is a picture of my family. All of us on our trip to Hawaii. I was so little, and mom was fine. Dad didn't work out of town as often, either. "To be honest, sir," I begin quietly, "I don't even know how this happened. I was visiting my mother in a nursing home. She has an incurable disease, one that causes her to forget. She- I brought these pictures in case she forgot who I was. Sometimes new people make her anxious, and I thought that maybe the pictures would spark some recognition. As I was walking inside from my car, I came here. I didn't fall. I wasn't in some sort of freak accident. It just happened, unexpected and unwillingly." I omit some important details like Alphonse and that freak guy because of that awful feeling at the pit of my stomach. "I don't mean to cause any problems, and I apologize about interrupting the Colonel and yourself. If I had the choice, I wouldn't have done so."

Instead of writing, he just sits there, contemplating on my account. "There is no need to apologize, Miss Meritt," he says. "How about I escort you to the Colonel's office. I assume you know nothing about our country?" I nod. "You can stay with the Colonel tonight, unless that makes you uneasy. Tomorrow, you will come in and fill out some paperwork. His team will be in charge of teaching you about our country, and then, if you decide, I will personally give you citizenship status. How does that sound?" My expression must have alarmed him. "Is this not suitable?"

"Oh! No, no! This is fine," I say, "It is just a lot to process. Glad I'm adaptable! This could cause an existential crisis for some people." He laughed. "Colonel Mustang, was it? Is he okay with me staying at his place for the night? I really hate to impose."

"The Colonel will be fine with it, I guarantee you," he says. "Come, let's get your photos picked up, and I will escort you to the Colonel's office where you can wait for him." We begin to pick up the random photos and scrap book pages from the floor. All but two managed to fall out of the box, but that's okay. It gives me a chance to look at all of these fun memories. After I collected quite a few in my hand, I made my way to the box.

Though, when I looked inside, I found this large, thin square. It is wrapped in floral gift wrap with a card attached to it. _To: Claribri_. I giggle at the nickname. "What is that, might I ask?"

"A birthday gift from my brother," I grin. "I didn't even know he put it there. I'm sorry. "I can finish if you have other work that needs to be done." He insists on helping me and walking me to the Colonel's office before he goes back to his responsibilities. It takes about five more minutes, and we have successfully placed everything back into the box.

I put on my bag, and I pick up the box. He leads me down the narrow halls, filled with people who are silently at attention due to his presence. After the most uncomfortable silence, we finally make it to the office. "Thank you, sir, for all of your help and your understanding. I will wait here for Colonel Mustang's return."

"There is no need to thank me."

* * *

Oh dear. Claire is really going to have to bump up her A game to get used to a new everything.

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Nice reviews make me happy, too, like, very happy.

They make my day, but if you have a problem with my story, feel free to review or PM me. I accept constructive criticism. I do not ever accept ridicule.

 **Constructive Criticism:** "I like how you did this, but here is a problem that needs to be fixed. I would fix it this way."

 **Ridicule:** "I hate this story. *spits flames of anger* You shouldn't write if you can't get the details correctly."

Constructive Criticism makes me a better writer, whereas ridicule makes me want to quit what I love.

-Adri


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